Google Pixel Fold 2 display leak reveals some key details

Google is preparing to announce its next-gen folding phone - the Google Pixel Fold 2 - and one of the key details has just been revealed by a reliable source. We now know what size the displays will be.

Posting on Twitter, Ross Young - an authority on displays - has claimed that previous leaks are wrong, and the display of the Pixel Fold 2 is actually 8.02 inches for the main screen and 6.29 inches for the external display.

What's important about these measurements is that they suggest a radically different device to the original Pixel Fold. When we reviewed Google's first crack at a folding phone, we noted that the displays had some appeal, especially the exterior display, mostly because of its usable width.

But it looks like it could be all change on the Pixel Fold 2, as that 6.3-inch external display is likely to bring with it a change in aspect, making the phone taller than it was before, and losing that advantage the previous model offered.

That certainly seems to be the case based on leaked renders and a leaked hands-on image of the new device. Could this change in design propel the Pixel Fold 2 to the top of the best folding phones list?

Improvements that Google should target on the Pixel Fold 2

The Pixel Fold launched in 2023 with plenty of excitement. Google had talked a lot about optimising for larger displays through 2023. This included updating core Google apps to work better on tablets - like the Pixel Tablet - but also designed to support the latest trend for folding phones.  

The result was a phone that worked well on some of these apps, but was let down in some other areas. The software experience doesn't compete with the Galaxy Z Fold 5, for example, and Google's refactoring for larger displays doesn't come close to the sort of support for larger apps that the Apple iPad offers.

Apart from improving the software experience - which, notably, is down to developers in some cases - the Pixel Fold was prohibitively expensive and the battery life wasn't great.

So there's plenty that Google can focus on to boost the experience offered by the Pixel Fold 2 and make it more desirable. Exactly how the new external display will perform remains to be seen.

The launch of the new device is currently unknown. The previous model was announced in June 2023 having had a heavy reveal at Google I/O in May. Google might follow the same pattern, or, if rumours prove to be true and it comes equipped with Tensor 4 - the new hardware expected to power the Pixel 9 Pro - then it might be that the new folding phone isn't released until October 2024.